They were treated like terrorists, writes Malaika wa Azania.
There has been speculation about what transpired in Morocco a few days ago when a black youth ambassador for the AU landed in Morocco.
The full-time student in Grahamstown is a member of the African Youth Initiative on Climate Change (AYICC) South Africa.
The CCDA-4 is organised by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca), the AU Commission (AUC) and the African Development Bank (AfDB).
In Casablanca in Morocco, the crisis of being a “black terrorist”, began.
Upon arrival in Morocco, at 12.10pm on Tuesday, Moroccan authorities, in spite of valid and authentic documentation, refused to grant the blacks visas.
Some people in the group were allowed to enter the country while others were denied entry.
People holding diplomatic passports, were high-ranking officials but were equally being denied entry.
The language barrier between the Afro-Saxons and the Moroccan authorities, who speak French and Arabic, was making communication a “nightmare” according the youth ambassador.
The sense of entitlement black South Africans suffer from, increased the antagonism on both sides.
Eventually Wa Azania was asked to “drink water from a toilet” because there was nothing else available.
Washing her underwear and drying it with a hand-dryer, and using her fingers to pry the plaque off her teeth, was “the most humiliating experience”, she said. ” No woman should ever have to go through that.
“We were treated like terrorists who had gone to Morocco to destabilise the government, or as asylum seekers who were refusing to be deported back to their homes,” Malaika wa Azania said.
The youth ambassador couldn’t stay in Morocco after the trauma she said, and booked onto the next available flight eventhough they were granted visas.
